Perfect Victim (18 page)

Dr. Hatcher arrived punctually, looking fit, trim, and younger than his true age of nearly forty. A high forehead added to an overall impression of intelligence, and he was immaculately dressed in a navy blue pin-stripe suit with white shirt and dark tie. After introductions, Hatcher and Mcguire went to discuss the Hooker case over breakfast in the hotel’s coffee shop.

Early in the conversation, Mcguire expressed concern that, despite his ample background in serving as a consultant in hostage and kidnap situations, Dr. Hatcher had never actually offered expert testimony in court.

To this Dr. Hatcher replied, simply, “I am not a professional witness.”

This made Mcguire smile. Dr. Hatcher understood, then, the pitfalls of retaining someone who had been on the stand too many times. Testifying, for an expert, can be astonishingly lucrative, but those who regularly testify are vulnerable to accusations that they are less an expert than a paid advocate.

Mcguire found Dr. Hatcher to be articulate and well informed. He absorbed information quickly, asked questions, and even offered insights into areas of the Hooker case that needed further investigation. He was sharp, no doubt about that.

Still, Mcguire wondered if this well-dressed psychologist might be too slick for a jury in the rural community of Red Bluff. His tailored, polished look and his intellectual bearing might alienate them.

“To be honest, I’m not sure how a jury in our county will take to an expert witness from the big city,” she told him. Then, as a joke she asked, “You don’t by chance own a pair of cowboy boots, do you?”

He surprised her by answering, “As a matter of fact, I do.” Then he added, “And at times I can draw upon my Georgia accent,” demonstrating a smooth Southern drawl.

Mcguire laughed. It was difficult to find fault with this man.

When breakfast was over and the interview ended, Dr. Hatcher underscored an already favorable impression by asking to see a picture of Mcguire’s daughter, then sharing a picture of his own little girl. He was not only sharp, but warm.

It was early — she’d only had one interview — but Mcguire wondered if she hadn’t already found her expert.

Soon, she departed for an afternoon appointment with Dr. Donald T. Lunde, of Stanford University. He was the only one of the professionals she contacted who declined to meet with her at the hotel. After a tiring ninety-minute bus ride, Mcguire arrived at Dr. Lunde’s office, was greeted briefly, and was then kept waiting for twenty minutes while he left the office. She tried not to be offended, remembering the times she’d kept people waiting at her own office.

When Dr. Lunde returned, inviting her into his plush office, he immediately took control of the conversation. He spoke of his areas of expertise and consulted his files frequently, yet he seemed to recall little about the Hooker case, despite their correspondence.

Clearly, this was not a big priority in his life.

Christine did virtually none of the talking, partly because she was exhausted and partly because Dr. Lunde overran her attempts to interject. Somehow, during this two-hour interview, she couldn’t manage to get her questions answered.

The district attorney didn’t know quite what to make of this short, talkative man suited in brown. Nevertheless, the interview ended amicably, with Dr. Lunde assuring her that if he could be of service, he would be glad to help.

Some months later, she would look back on her meeting with Dr. Lunde with particular interest.

Deputy DA Mcguire interviewed the rest of the specialists over the next week. All had much to recommend them, and Mcguire wished the county could afford to retain two experts, but even hiring one put an extra drain on their already meager resources. She took her file of notes back home and roughed out a letter asking about fees. The trial date was now set for February 20, scarcely a month away, and she had to decide soon.

2. Since only one expert could be retained, Mcguire had to rule out E. r. Singer because of her sex — ironic, given that Christine Mcguire had had an active role in the local chapter of the National Organization for Women. But the reality was that a Red Bluff jury might not take kindly to Christine, Colleen, Janice, and Dr. Margaret Singer all working to put Hooker behind bars. It would seem, she feared, a conspiracy of women.

Attorneys always try to figure out an OPPOnent’s case in advance, then build counter arguments and counter evidence, anticipating questions and distilling answers.

For the defense, this is less difficult because “open discovery” laws are on their side. Whatever the district attorney’s office uncovers must be shared with the defense attorney — every piece of evidence, every police report, every statement. With a big case, the paper work swells as each move gets reported on, typed up, photocopied, Passed on, and filed. It can be mountainous.

Though the defense knows every move the DA’s office makes, the reverse isn’t true. The defense isn’t obligated to share any information with the prosecution. Anything unearthed that supports the defendant’s position remains secret. And whatever the Prosecution understands about the opposition’s case is conjecture, supposition, rumor, a stray fact that someone lets slip, or information that the defense attorney shares out of courtesy or strategy.

While police were helping Deputy DA Mcguire build the People’s case, Rolland Papendick had hired his own investigator, Gary Kelley, to help with Hooker’s defense. Kelley, a red-headed man with more than a decade of experience as a private investigator, set about making the rounds, asking questions of friends, neighbors and coworkers but found that many of these had had enough of Strangers nosing around. According to Janice Hooker, some of her neighbors felt intimidated by him, and one got mad and “threw him out.”

But Kelley had better luck in other areas, and the DA’s office had no way of knowing what he and Papendick had discovered.

Meanwhile, with less than a month before the trial date, Rolland Papendick filed a change-of-venue motion. Mcguire wasn’t surprised. The story had swept Northern California, and the intensive coverage had left her half expecting a request for a change of venue. Her expectation was confirmed one afternoon when Papendick showed her the fat file of newspaper clippings he’d accumulated.

Despite the media saturation, a change of venue was controversial. One judge made a point of calling the two attorneys into his office to caution them against what he considered the “horrors” of an out-of-county trial — the length of time it might take, the strange place it might be tried, and the not insignificant cost of transporting staff, witnesses, records, evidence, and such to some unknown destination.

These would turn out to be more serious considerations than any of them guessed.

In the meantime, Papendick’s motion had the effect of postponing the trial. A new date would be set only after the change-of-venue ruling, giving both sides more time to prepare.

They couldn’t both be right, but while Papendick thought a change of venue would help the defense, Mcguire thought it would help the prosecution. She believed that everybody in the county had an opinion on the case-mostly prodefense. Though she made little comment to the press, she personally hoped Papendick’s motion would be granted and the trial would be sent out of county — far away from Cameron Hooker’s sympathetic neighbors.

In January, Al Shamblin was promoted to patrol sergeant, requiring him to work nights, so he was taken off the Hooker investigation and replaced by Lt. Jerry Brown. Mcguire liked Brown but was sorry to see Shamblin taken off the case. (She wasn’t the only one. Janice Hooker had developed such an attachment to the gentle detective that when she had anything to add to her statement, she continued to ask for Shamblin rather than Brown.)

Mcguire accompanied Al Shamblin on the last two interviews he conducted for the Hooker investigation. The two subjects were ages eight and six, Cathy and Dawn Hooker.

They were both lovely children, with long, straight, light brown hair cascading down their backs. Dawn, the younger, was missing two front teeth. Mcguire had prepared a list of questions for Detective Shamblin, but she left it to him to conduct the interview, only stepping in from time to time.

Cooperative and sweet, both little girls revealed themselves as totally innocent of any peculiar goings-on at home, though they offered a few corroborations and didn’t directly contradict anything Janice and Colleen had claimed. How was it possible that their parents had kept these girls so completely insulated from their father’s strange habits?

Christine Mcguire already had a warm relationship with Lieutenant Brown. A seasoned police officer with some twenty years with RBPD, Brown had a craggy, kind face and an easy sense of humor. In no time, he was calling the almost daily lists of requests that Mcguire sent “my honey-do memos,” because, he said, they reminded him of his wife: “Honey do this, honey do that. “

Acting on Christine Mcguire’s edict: “The more visual aids, the better,” Brown arranged to have diagrams drawn up of the Hooker property, the rack, and the basement. (The Red Bluff Planning Department, knowing the county was financially strapped, was kind enough to do the work for free.) Pictures of the slavery contract and the rack were also blown up, mounted, and readied for display. (A local photo studio, demonstrating true civic-mindedness, did that work for free as well.)

On Friday, February 1, Lieutenant Brown, stopped Mcguire just as she was leaving her office on her way to court. He wasn’t the kind of man you’d expect to see bubbling over with enthusiasm, but here he was, practically bouncing with excitement: “Guess what we got back from the FBI lab?”

Mcguire knew he meant the out-of-date film they’d seized at the mobile home — that was the only thing they’d sent to Washington — but she scarcely had time to speak before Brown went on.

“Slides of a woman in bondage,” he pronounced. “They’re not real clear, but they appear to be shots taken inside the trailer.”

“You can’t tell who the woman is? They’re not Janice?” she asked.

“I don’t know. The film was so old, the slides aren’t that good. They may even have to be restored. But the woman has moles on one side of her body.”

Mcguire’s pulse skipped. The implication was clear: They could have shots of Colleen.

Janice had told them that all the photographs of K had been destroyed one night when they’d burned slides, papers, photos, magazines, and bondage equipment in a barrel in their backyard.

But Hooker had forgotten about the negative of the slavery contract; could he have overlooked this old film as well?

“I’ve got to be in court in a few minutes, Jerry. When can I come over and see these pictures?”

“Just give me a call whenever you’re free. I’ll set up a slide show for you. In the meantime, I’ll contact Janice and Colleen and ask them if they have any moles.”

She arranged to meet Lieutenant Brown on Monday, after the weekend. He had a projector and screen set up and waiting in a small storage room in police headquarters.

Brown switched off the lights and the show began.

The first shots were clearly of Janice being hung in the woods — probably taken before she and Cameron were married — and a few more were of Janice hung or bound in the trailer. Then the image of another woman flashed onto the screen.

It showed the woman from the waist up. She was hung by the wrists, naked, with her eyes closed and a thin metal ri’ng around her neck.

“Oh my god, the slave collar! That’s gotta be Colleen,” Mcguire whispered.

They stared at this slide for a long moment. Though the woman’s face wasn’t clear, there was no question in Christine’s mind that this was not Janice, but Colleen: Her breasts were smaller, she didn’t wear glasses, and her hair was much longer.

Then Jerry projected another, similar slide onto the screen.

Apparently taken at the same time, this was a full-body shot.

“That’s her, Jerry, absolutely. Look how bow-legged she is!”

In her mind’s eye, Mcguire called up a picture of Colleen the day before the preliminary hearing: tight pastel jeans, high heels, and bow-legged, like her father. But then Colleen was plump; in these pictures she was bony, her ribs and hipbones sticking out. Hanging there with her arms stretched out to the sides, she looked as if she were being crucified. Her dull, dirty hair trailed far down her back, her face was upturned as if pulled back by the weight of it, exposing a long, thin neck with the slave collar encircling it.

There were four slides of Colleen in all, two of each view.

Characteristically, Hooker had duplicated his shots. He was fanatical, obsessed with chronicling the pain he inflicted on others.

Now this meticulous cataloging had provided not only a picture of the signed slavery contract, but, it appeared, a photograph of the slave.

Soon the show was over. The two rolls they’d seized were short, and not all of the pictures had come out. Brown switched on the lights and everyday reality flooded back.

“We need to get a positive ID that this is really Colleen,” Mcguire said, blinking. “Can you get Janice in here and have her take a look?”

“I sure will,” Brown promised.

Mcguire chanced across Janice Hooker at the police station the next day. They greeted each other warmly and chatted a minute, Janice saying she was on her way to view the slides. The meeting was brief, but Christine noticed a change in Mrs. Hooker.

She seemed robust and spunky, and her mind didn’t wander.

She’d come a long way from the drugged and reluctant character the prosecutor had become so exasperated with during the preliminary hearing.

Mcguire would have liked to sit in on Janice’s session, but she had to get to court. The next morning, she rang Brown to get the full report.

Janice had been shy about viewing the slides and embarrassed about having to ID so many pictures of herself, he said. “She wouldn’t let me project them on the wall. She said she wasn’t ready for that.” Instead, Janice held the slides up to the light, identifying them one by one. And, yes, the skinny woman with the slave collar was Colleen Stan.